Why data migration is where ERP projects usually go wrong
Most ERP go-live problems aren't configuration bugs — they're migrated data that's wrong, duplicated, or missing entirely, discovered days after go-live when someone can't find a customer's order history or a vendor balance doesn't match. Data migration deserves its own careful process, not a rushed export-import at the end of a project.
What we migrate
- Customer and vendor master records
- Open and historical transactions (invoices, purchase orders, payments)
- Inventory balances and item masters
- Chart of accounts and opening balances
- Employee records for payroll/HR modules
- Attachments and document history where the source system supports export
Our migration process
- Data audit. We assess your current data quality — duplicates, missing fields, inconsistent formats — before migration starts.
- Cleaning. Deduplication and standardisation happen before data moves, not after.
- Mapping. Every field in the old system is mapped to its destination in the new one, documented so it's auditable.
- Trial migration. A test run into a staging environment, checked against the source before the real migration.
- Reconciliation. Record counts and key balances (stock value, receivables, payables) are checked against the old system before go-live.
What happens to the old system
We typically recommend keeping read-only access to your previous system for a defined period after go-live — historical lookups are common in the first few months, and it costs nothing to keep that access available while trust in the new system builds.
Engagement & pricing
Migration is priced by data volume and complexity — the number of record types being moved, how many years of transaction history, and how messy the source data is. A single-entity migration with clean records is a smaller job than a multi-branch migration from several legacy systems with years of inconsistent data entry. We quote after the initial data audit, once we know what we’re actually working with.
Why migration quality matters beyond go-live
Bad migration data doesn’t just cause a rocky launch week — it quietly undermines trust in the new system for months afterward, as staff find discrepancies and stop relying on the reports. Getting migration right the first time is cheaper than firefighting data issues six months into a live ERP.
ERP platforms we work with
We're not tied to one platform — we implement and configure whichever fits your business, including:
Frequently asked questions
Yes — spreadsheet-to-ERP migration is common. The data audit and cleaning step matters even more in that case, since spreadsheets rarely have consistent structure.
That's normal, and it's exactly what the data audit and cleaning phase is for — we flag issues and clean them as part of migration rather than carrying bad data into the new system.
Reconciliation checks record counts and key financial balances (stock value, receivables, payables) between the old and new systems before go-live, with any discrepancy investigated and resolved.
We typically recommend 3-6 months of read-only access for historical lookups, though this depends on your industry's record-keeping requirements.
Talk to us about erp data migration.
Free scoping call — we'll tell you what's actually needed for your setup, no obligation.